PGE Will Invest $2.84 Billion a Year in Shift to Cleaner Power

By David McQuaid -
Feb 10, 2012

The supervisory board of PGE SA,
Poland’s biggest power generator, yesterday approved a strategy
to invest more than 9 billion zloty ($2.84 billion) a year in
2012-2020 to boost its installed capacity and market share while
shifting to nuclear power and renewable energy sources,
according to a regulatory statement.

PGE will raise its installed capacity, now at 13.1
gigawatts, to 15.8 gigawatts in 2020 and 21.3 gigawatts in 2035,
by which time 4.5 gigawatts would come from nuclear power
plants. That will involve total capital expenditures of about
330 billion zloty from 2012 to 2035, the company said.

The utility is forecasting consolidated earnings before
interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization, or Ebitda, at
about 12 billion zloty in 2020 and 34 billion zloty in 2035.

The company is targeting of 2020 fuel mix of 55 percent
from lignite, 18 percent from hard coal, 15 percent from natural
gas and 11 percent from renewable energy. By 2035, the company
will be relying on nuclear plants for 36 percent of its power,
followed by lignite at 33 percent, renewables at 14 percent, gas
at 11 percent and hard coal at 5 percent.

Carbon emissions would decline to 0.86 tons per megawatt
hour in 2020 and 0.27 tons in 2035 from 1.06 tons in 2010, the
company said. Over that time, PGE would boost its share in the
Poland’s power generating market to 44 percent in 2020 and 46
percent in 2035 from 42 percent in 2010.